Data Breach Detection

Data breach can result in the loss of sensitive information, such as customer data, financial information, or intellectual property. This can lead to financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liability. However, data breaches can be difficult to detect, and difficult to remediate. Data breach detection helps your team find breaches that might have flown under the radar for months or even years. 

How Flare Helps with Data Breach Detection

Why is data breach detection difficult for security teams? 

Data breaches can be caused in many ways. Some are accidental and some are intentional, and in many cases, you may not even know a breach has occurred until it’s been exploited by a bad actor. For this reason, monitoring your own network and the web is critical for your security team. However, scanning for leaks is an overwhelming task. It’s time-consuming, tedious, and your team runs the risk of making errors. 

How does Flare help with data breach detection? 

Flare automates the scanning process, monitoring the clear & dark web, as well as illict Telegram channels 24/7, so your team can find data leaks immediately and take action before criminals are able to exploit any vulnerabilities. 

What are the key benefits of Flare’s data breach prevention tools? 

• A proactive security stance: You might not be able to stop every single breach, but by actively seeking them out, you can catch breaches and data exposures early.
• Visibility into data breaches: Because the attack surface is constantly expanding, it can be very hard to find breaches manually. Flare’s data leak monitoring solution scans the dark and clear web, as well as illicit Telegram channels, to find leaks before an attack happens. 
• Continuous monitoring: Your team can’t scan the web for leaks around the clock. Using a solution that scans for you gives you 24/7 coverage, so you will know as soon as a data breach occurs. 

Data Breach Detection: An Overview

What is data breach detection? 

A data breach is any incident that causes sensitive information — such as trade secrets, proprietary code, financial information or personal data — to be exposed to unauthorized individuals. Data breach prevention is the process of stopping a data breach before threat actors can take advantage of it. 

How are data breaches caused?

Breaches are caused when data is accidentally leaked or deliberately stolen. This is often the result of one of the following: 

• An external threat actor: The majority of threats to your data (83%) come from outside your company. Bad actors often attempt to steal your data by using tools like malware and ransomware as well as tactics like phishing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and brute force. They may also take advantage of any vulnerabilities they find. 
• Human error: People make mistakes, and unfortunately, those mistakes can expose data. For example, a team member may accidentally push proprietary code to a public GitHub repository, or an AWS bucket may be left exposed to the web. Accidental breaches can happen internally as well; if files are left where unauthorized co-workers can read them, that is also considered a breach – even if the coworkers read the file by accident. Shadow IT is a good example of this kind of breach. 
• Malicious insiders: Insiders who deliberately expose or steal data to do harm are considered malicious. They may be disgruntled, or working for a rival company, or exposing information for financial gain. 

How can data breaches be prevented? 

Preventing a data breach requires a combination of employee education, strong security controls, and a proactive cybersecurity culture:

• Require strong authentication: Best password practices are critical. Threat actors count on employees being lazy with their passwords, reusing old ones or using easy to guess passwords. 
• Encrypt code: At rest or in transit, your code should always be encrypted. If your team is distributing code across several platforms, be sure they encrypt data to keep it safe from malicious actors. 
• Harden your infrastructure: When mistakes happen, it’s best if attackers can’t see them. To mitigate harm, strengthen your infrastructure, so that threat actors can’t find vulnerabilities to exploit.
• Scan to identify breaches: It’s critical to look for leaks before they are exploited. Scan software for malicious or harmful code that may have been inserted. Search public GitHub repositories for accidentally or maliciously leaked code. Continuous scanning of sites like pastebin and monitoring the dark web can also help to quickly identify breaches and suspicious activity.

What’s the Importance of Data Breaches in Today’s Cybersecurity Landscape?

How many data breaches were reported in the last year? 

In 2023, there was a 72% increase of data breaches over 2021 which held the previous record for the highest number of publicly reported data breaches on record. In the ransomware context alone, Flare’s platform tracked over groups and over 5,500 victims, in 2023 which represented a 160% year-over-year increase from 2022. However, it’s important to understand that not all breaches are reported. Some aren’t noticed, and some are simply not disclosed.

What is the impact of a data breach? 

The average cost of a data breach peaked in 2023 at  $4.45 million. The majority (82%) of those data breaches featured information stored in the cloud. Smaller businesses tend to face higher costs from data breaches, and those costs are often passed along to the customer. However, the cost of a breach goes beyond finances; companies also lose the trust of their customers and partners, and may suffer reputational loss in general.

What’s the impact of an unreported data breach? 

Our team found that less than 10% of data breaches were reported in 2020. Many companies who don’t report data breaches do so out of a desire to prevent reputational loss and preserve client trust, but not reporting breaches does just the opposite. If a data breach is not reported, customers and partners may be put at even more risk, because they don’t know their data has been exposed. If the breach is exposed by the media and you haven’t reported it, you are likely to face even more scrutiny, as well as legal and regulatory fines. 

Data Breach Detection and Flare

Flare provides the leading Threat Exposure Management (TEM) solution for organizations. Our technology constantly scans the online world, including the clear & dark web, to discover unknown events, automatically prioritize risks, and deliver actionable intelligence you can use instantly to improve security.  Monitor data leaks with Flare to prevent data breaches.

Our solution integrates into your security program in 30 minutes to provide your team with actionable intelligence and automated remediation for high-risk exposure. See it yourself with our free trial.